


Echoes

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [38]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Scars, THEIA Soulnanigans, nureyev is a schmaltzy bastard and i love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: In a technical sense, Peter Nureyev knew nothing about the THEIA Soul. If asked to discuss its intricacies, he could give little more than a summary. He hardly knew its goal, let alone the functions and machinations that blinked behind the blue and red lights Juno had described to him once.However, that didn’t mean he did not understand the THEIA Soul intimately.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 34
Kudos: 148





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> hoo. this one alternates from very sweet and very heavy so keep an eye on the content warnings!!
> 
> Content warnings for discussion of scars, theia soul-typical content, nightmares (witnesses by someone not having one), nausea mention, referenced sexual content (i.e. mentions of poetry night),

In a technical sense, Peter Nureyev knew nothing about the THEIA Soul. If asked to discuss its intricacies, he could give little more than a summary. He hardly knew its goal, let alone the functions and machinations that blinked behind the blue and red lights Juno had described to him once.

However, that didn’t mean he did not understand the THEIA Soul intimately.

Nureyev’s thumbs and lips and gentle words of worship had long since made a starmap of the scars upon Juno’s sternum. He could not say for certain what shape the plate of metal took or what exact shade of bronze it reflected, but he had studied the damage it could do with loving eyes.

“What are you even doing down there anyway?” Juno had snorted one night, pausing Nureyev halfway through his worshipful cartography of the scattered marks.

“Kissing you, my love,” Nureyev stopped to raise his head. “Is everything alright?”

Juno’s expression was quizzical, though Nureyev doubted it took a master thief to know just how much it was strained. The big, soft doe eye that so often fell upon him in benediction had gone just a little too wide and somewhere beneath the swirling gas giant of an iris, Nureyev could have sworn worry fluttered.

“Yeah, no, it’s fine,” Juno sighed. “Go ahead.”

“Love,” Nureyev started, replacing his lips with his chin.

“What?”

“You’re avoiding the question, my dear.”

Nureyev watched unblinkingly as Juno swallowed.

“I just—” Juno broke off to shake his head. “What do you even see in those, y’know? It’s not one of the decent looking ones or anything. Just a stupid pinprick.”

“I won’t ever touch it again, if you want—”

Juno cut him off with a huff.

“No, I just—”

It was Nureyev’s turn to pause him, though with nothing any less polite than a squeeze to his hand.

“Love,” he started. “If you are willing and able, would you be comfortable telling me about that one?”

Juno swallowed, and had his hand not still lay among Peter’s nest of ruffled hair, running gentle, thoughtful lines even now, Nureyev would have been terrified at the length of his silence. However, once he seemed to have gathered his thoughts, he cleared his throat, then swallowed.

“I’ve told you about the Souls, right?”

“Of course,” Nureyev returned quickly, knowing well Juno preferred all conversations steer away from the subject at top speed. “What of them?”

“That’s the scar,” he sighed.

“Oh,” Nureyev started. “My love, I won’t ever touch the mark again. You have plenty of scars for me to make over without dredging up any painful memories.”

“That’s the thing though,” Juno pressed on, shaking his head. “I dunno, you just—I mean, you’ve got your words and opinions for them—”

“Juno, dear, you can just say that I think they’re attractive,” Nureyev chuckled, pressing a pointed peck to a mark upon Juno’s shoulder while the expression above him turned to an affectionate glare.

“I think the word you used was—”

“Embarrassing,” Nureyev cut him off.

“Sexy,” Juno finished with a feigned hacking noise.

“You certainly didn’t seem to mind at the time,” Nureyev huffed, though his glower barely lived a moment longer than Juno’s, a kinder look blooming as Juno’s smile passed his way.

“Whatever,” Juno brushed him off, though his fond expression flickered for just a moment, and what lay underneath seemed so raw and bare Nureyev’s chest twinged as if he had looked upon some great secret he was never meant to have seen. “I just don’t get why you would waste so much time on them. I’m not telling you not to, I just—I just wanna hear it from you.”

“My dear, apologies for the poetry in advance,” Nureyev paused to clear his throat. 

When he opened his mouth to speak again, he couldn’t keep his gaze from tarrying onto the scars once more. When Juno nodded his permission, he allowed one thumb to rest upon a corner of the mark, running tender lines up and down what he would have considered a blemish if it were on his own skin. However, on Juno, anything he might see as an imperfection on himself seemed to glow like a star handpicked for the sky by the kind of loving force he wanted to believe had crafted the universe to be beautiful.

“Nureyev,” Juno snorted. “This was supposed to be poetry night anyway.”

“Is it even poetry night anymore?” Nureyev chuckled. “You recited a limerick, tossed the book away, and kissed me, and frankly, I’m a bit offended you thought a mediocre joke poem was worth my—”

“Nureyev,” Juno groaned, though he paused for long enough that his good humor died in the air. “Answer the goddamned question.”

“I—” Nureyev paused to clear his throat. “Well, I suppose I love it for the same reason I love all your other scars. They’re as much a part of you as that sharp tongue I love or the way that lovely face of yours glares whenever you’re lost in thought. It’s a mark of living. There is a lifetime of living in your skin, Juno. I’m proud of you for making it through every single day, especially those few that won’t fade with time.”

Juno swallowed.

“Too much?” Nureyev winced.

“No, I just—” Juno broke off to nod. Only when Nureyev caught the corner of his mouth twitching did his chest unclench. “Goddamn.”

“Good or bad?”

“God, just get the hell up here and kiss me again,” Juno laughed until he could manage to pull Nureyev up and occupy his mouth on better things than poetry.

As far as Peter Nureyev knew, he didn’t need to research the THEIA Soul to become well versed in its intricacies. The way Juno’s eye had gone cold until Nureyev made his argument had left its own invisible mark, one he didn’t need to glance at to remember. The mark upon Juno’s chest was the only scar they ever discussed the worship of, as was it the only one whose origin he deemed himself unready to talk about.

Unfortunately for the both of them, Juno’s unconscious mind proved to be mutinous towards his goal of dealing with the discussion in due time.

Juno usually slept like someone who couldn’t be sure if he’d live to see the next day dawn. When Nureyev managed to drag him into bed, a task that had become easier and easier with time and a loss of pretense around their poetry nights, he often crashed immediately and crashed hard. When he decided he was going to sleep, he had an infuriating habit of being out in minutes, and often looked so aggravatingly comfortable that all Nureyev could do was stroke his hair and shoot adoring daggers into the back of his head while Juno slept, shifting only to cuddle closer into his arms.

When they woke, Juno usually took significant coaxing to pull out of bed once more. Fortunately for the both of them, or unfortunately if one happened to be a crewmate who cared about timeliness, Nureyev usually shared his opinions about staying to cuddle under the sheets until the very universe told them off for doing so.

Most of the time, Juno’s sleep appeared dreamless. Most of the time, he barely shifted, not even waking his light sleeper of a partner when he left for the bathroom. Most of the time, Peter Nureyev didn’t wake with a hand groping blindly at the patch of sheets by his face.

“Juno,” he complained, the usually anointed word blurred by sleep. “Love, why don’t you—”

“Please, no,” Juno whispered to unhearing ears. “I don’t know who he is, but—”

“Juno?” Nureyev called again. “Dear?”

Juno didn’t reply, though his breathing picked up. Whatever haze of exhaustion had still been clinging to Nureyev crumbled away, replaced by the kind of freshly awoken adrenaline he had trained himself to normalize after a life of sleeping in odd and often dangerous places. Lingering in bed was a luxury, even if it was one he had become accustomed to.

“I don’t care—goddammit, I don’t care about the greater good—”

“Juno, I need you to listen to me, love,” Nureyev began as gently as he could, wary of laying a hand upon his shoulder when Juno had rolled away and begun to clutch to the nearest pillow with white-knuckled fingers.

“You can’t make me listen.”

“Dear,” Nureyev tried.

“THEIA, off,” he hissed.

“My love.”

“Why won’t this goddamn thing stop?” Juno groaned. “Jesus Christ, I told you already, I’m not gonna—you can’t make me—”

“Juno,” Nureyev started again, careful to ensure his voice hadn’t gone too flat or mechanical. Even as Juno winced again, some unseen pain causing his hands to wrench at the bedsheets and his face to twist, he let his hand come closer and closer until it cupped his cheek. “There you are, love. Breathe for me, Juno. Please breathe with me. Do you think you can do that?”

He forced his thumb to run its regular path over Juno’s cheekbone, anointed with its own scar that Nureyev must have spent cumulative hours making over with his eyes and touch and lips alike. When Juno’s hand came to rest on his wrist without the slightest aggression, Nureyev finally allowed himself to breathe.

“Juno,” he heard himself sigh. “My love, are you awake?”

Juno managed a nod.

“How do you feel about touch right now, my dear?”

“Good,” Juno returned a little breathlessly, turning back over onto his back. “Just—just need to get my pulse down.”

“Perfect,” Nureyev returned with a soft smile. “May I hold you, my dear?”

“You’d better,” Juno tried and failed to chuckle.

Nureyev took that as his cue to wrap an arm over Juno’s waist, curled around him so he wouldn’t need to move an inch. Reminding himself that a little selfishness wasn’t always a terrible thing while embracing someone, he made a pillow of Juno’s chest. One of Juno’s hands made its way up to his scalp to run his nails, newly manicured by Rita, upon Nureyev’s head, and Peter couldn’t help a faint smile, for Juno had fallen immediately for the subtle suggestion.

“Is that any better, love?”

“Just about anything’s better than that,” Juno sighed. “I—”

He broke off with a shake of his head.

“You don’t need to tell me anything you’re not ready for, my dear.”

“I know it couldn’t even happen—hell, you weren’t even on Mars at the time—but it—“ he paused to gesture at his chest. “—Was in my head again and it kept trying to—”

“Breathe, my love.”

“It kept trying to make me hurt people I didn’t wanna hurt,” he finished slowly, having to pluck the words one by one.

“Was I there?”

Juno nodded. Nureyev didn’t see any point in trying to push him further, so instead, he turned his head to the side and pressed a kiss to the memorized scar at the center of his chest.

“Juno, do you want to know why else I love that scar?”

“Why?”

“Because it means that it’s over,” he smiled.

“Huh,” Juno mused. “I guess so.”

From his vantage point on Juno’s chest, Nureyev listened to his breathing steady and his heartbeat grow slower until eventually, as always, sleep claimed him first. Even though he knew his own surrender was not far behind, he couldn’t help but appreciate the moment while it lasted. Something equal parts warm and soft and protective had formed in his chest, and at the sound of the pulse below his ear marching forward in gentle, restful time, it bloomed.

**Author's Note:**

> man. more hugs. please. im so touch starved
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill hug you real hard
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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